They’re back! The pros are back!

Mmmm, I just wanna curl up with today’s news like it’s a warm blanket.  Yeah, it’s that time of year.  Indoor track is starting, world level cross country is getting serious, and the pros are coming out of their training/hibernation and starting to test their wheels again.  Sprinters talking smack about each other (knock it off!  Just run!). Tweeters tweetin’.  Daily 10-miler updates from Meb, Kara’s off getting knocked up, Shalane’s prepping for a half, Geb’s aiming at his world record in Dubai (again).  Oh, it’s delicious…

Today’s shocker was seeing Kenenisa Bekele drop to fourth in the Great Edinburgh International Cross Country race.  The great Bekele, widely considered a candidate to supplant Haile Gebreselaisse as the greatest runner of all time, had a slightly sub-par season last year by his standards, and wasn’t really a factor today, finishing nearly 40 seconds behind winner Joseph Ebuya, and wasn’t even competitive with the second and third-place finishers, Titus Mbishei and Eliud Kipchoge (another favorite who slipped back).  I think this is probably just a blip and he’ll be motivated to stomp the bejesus out of these kids on the track this summer, but it does make you wonder what’s up.  He’s too young for declining skills…is he thinking too much about legacy and hurting himself in training?  I think it bears watching.

On the women’s side, it was nice to see one of my favorites, Tirunesh Dibaba, pull out a comfortable win over Vivian Cheruiyot (seriously, all these East African women are wonderful – I love watching them run, and they seem genuinely very nice).  The Brits showed their continued progression to worldwide competitiveness with Yelling outsprinting Scottish youngun Stephanie Twell – a superstar in the making – for fourth.

Meanwhile, indoor track is ramping up in the states.  Arkansas, Texas A&M, Missouri and Purdue all have meets today – of course, this early in the season you see the big guns dropping down in distance for speedwork and a lot of freshmen and sophomores getting their feet wet.  Still, Arkansas already produced a few automatic qualifying marks.  Next weekend the UW Indoor Preview starts the local season – I saw Amy Yoder-Begley, Kara Goucher and Galen Rupp at this last year, and got the first glimpse of the dominance that would define Jenny Barringer’s last track season.  Who’s coming this year?  I’ll try to find out and update!

And later this month, Bernard Lagat goes for his 8th Wanamaker mile title at the Millrose Games on the 29th, and my girl Lolo Jones returns to the track to hurdle in Glasgow on the 30th – here’s hoping she’s healthy again and returns to her 2008 form!  Lots of time for a broadcasting career – I wanna see her run. 

Okay, time to close out this rambling return to my writing…I’m just so excited, so much to talk about!